15
Customers want proactive engagement, but companies aren’t there yet
03
On one hand, customers welcome messages with a clear transactional benefit, including discounts, issues with an order, and delivery updates. However, they are more wary of true proactive customer support designed to anticipate their questions or reduce a support team’s workload, indicating that the bar is higher for this kind of messaging.
When you identify ways to enhance the customer experience, without the customer asking for it or even knowing that it’s possible, that’s proactive engagement. It can take many forms: • Sending a chat to a customer with an update about their recent order • Texting a customer about a new deal • Reaching out before a customer has an issue with your product
The door is (mostly) open to proactive engagement
I havemore favorable viewof companies with proactive support.
11% disagree
48% agree
Your customers expect you to give them the information they want, whether it’s related to the status of their order or a discount. They won’t always get in touch when they have a problem. Not with you, anyway. This is where proactive engagement comes in. The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer found that only 48% of the U.S. general population trusts businesses, falling from 58% last year, part of a decade-long downward trend. It’s crucial for companies to master proactivity over reactivity: sending helpful messages to customers. Never spam. But not all customers appreciate the same communication. Our data shows a clear split in terms of how accepting people are of different types of proactive outreach. What’s more, agents report that most proactive engagement still happens manually.
41% neutral
Nearly 90% of customers say they either look more favorably on companies that reach out proactively or are neutral about it. This is supported by industry research. A study by inContact found that customers were generally positive about proactive engagement, with 87% saying they are happy to be contacted proactively by companies regarding customer service issues.
2019 Zendesk Customer Experience Trends
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online